Episode #216 – Dependence And Faith

(M) You know, John, human problems are really very few at root, and they are simple. If you live in the intellect, you’ve got to have something new and exciting all the time. But if you live for Christ, if we live for Him, then we are instinctively interested in pleasing Him, even though we may not know that’s our motivation. And He’s ever moving on the issues, those few issues that are common to all humanity. And He’s dealing with two in our midst right now, pretty, pretty strongly in the Spirit. We’ve talked about one of them on the podcast; that is strength. And the other thing He’s dealing with among us is very deep-rooted fear. And suddenly as I was praying about this podcast, I realized they’re connected. (J) Hmhmm. (M) The two things that fallen man and woman go for, is to have personal power and strength, and the other thing is… They were in the garden, the first response to God was fear, because they were guilty, so there’s fear from guilt. But, and I’ve talked about fear a lot in days gone by, but there is no end. These small human propensities that we have, we go over again and again in different aspects and in deeper measure. Do you agree? (J) Hmhmm. (M) So, He’s really, really striking at our strengths, and I believe He’s doing that through the Body of Christ. I know in some areas He is. And that’s so that we will depend on Him. We, you and I and several are considering the crisis in the Middle East now, the tremendous rioting and falling of governments suddenly. And it seems to be falling in line with the scriptures and the prophecies. And so, God is busy getting us ready for whatever is coming. And I know that the necessity… There are two things necessary, dependence and faith. And the obstacle to dependence is strength, I can do it myself thank you. And the obstacle to faith is fear, because fear is actually faith. Fear is believing that something has power over you. (J) That’s what I was going to say, is the desire for power, not just trying to solve your own fear. Isn’t all power trying to gain power, just basically the fact that we’re dealing with fear and we’re trying to subside our fear? (M) That makes perfect sense, of course. (J) I mean pride, you know, you have pride, and it’s the fear of not being valued, worthy, blah-blah-blah, having something. It’s all fear based, and our response maybe to our fear is to take up illegitimate power. (M) Oh that’s brilliant. I’m stumped, shall I just turn it over to you? (J) No, I just was sitting here thinking that. (M) That is, it’s brilliant, yes. Fear makes us go for strength, and strength makes us afraid too. It’s a, it’s a cycle of the human condition I think. (J) Hmhmm, Hmhmm. (M) And I’ve often talked about how Jesus didn’t seem to mind the ambition of the disciples. He didn’t mind their presumption. He wasn’t impatient with anything they did but one thing, and that was fear. (J) Hmhmm. (M) And when they were on the sea of Galilee, and the storm came up in the boat, and they were terribly afraid, He really rebuked them, “Oh you of little faith, why were you afraid.” And in the Greek it’s very strong rebuke. And you know, humanly natural in a storm, to be afraid. And yet He didn’t consider that they had the privilege of doing that because it meant that they didn’t believe in Him, they believed in the storm, the power of weather to ‘get them’. Now, the reason He’s giving us these, a lot of light on us, on our hearts about this is because we are to be overcomers. And one of the qualities of Daniel that I see is the absence of fear, complete absence of fear. Jesus had no fear of the men who were at that moment He spoke to them were plotting to kill Him. (J) Hmhmm. (M) He had no fear. (J) I would think that I’d be totally afraid and scared to death, you know? (M) One of the techniques of power is to evoke fear. People in strength and power and position who want to rule, they rule by fear, by evoking fear. That is how humanity uses strength as well, is to evoke fear. So the fear of man, the fear of the weather, (Martha laughs) are all forbidden to the believer. And I think I’ve said, I’m not there, but I believe that it is possible to live without fear. Philippians four I’ve been in recently, and it says, “Be anxious for nothing.” And anxiety and worry are fear. And fretting is fear. I had an experience recently… Because fear makes you, invokes another emotion, and that is anger. And I can’t remember why, but I was angry about something. And I went to the scriptures, and I ended up in I think it was Ephesians. And it says, “Put away all malice, anger,” etc., etc., and the Holy spirit said, “Every command is a fact.” (J) Hmmmm. (M) And He meant by that… I knew what He meant. He meant that if He commands it, then you can do it. It is, it is already done in Christ. (J) Hmhmm. (M) And so I believed it. When I heard Him I believed it, and instantly all that fear was gone, and it did not come back. And it was an injustice that could have evoked a lot of legitimate anger, whatever it was. And ah, but it was gone, because the command to not fear, the command to not be angry, the command to not have malice, all has been accomplished in the ‘new man’. So the command is a fact, meaning it is now. The minute you get the command, at that moment you have it. And He proved it to me in that one episode. But the issue right now is fear, and I know that fear does evoke some of the angriest people are simply at the bottom of it, very afraid. They’re afraid they’re… They’re vulnerable so they go to strength and anger and everything to, to keep from being afraid and to cover up the fear. But we’re seeing that a huge root in our humanity is really stark fear. (J) Hmhmm. (M) And the Lord is going down there to that, to have us confess it, renounce it, and believe that we can live in the days to come, without fear. Fear will make you capitulate to power. (J) Right. (M) It seemed to me that Daniel… I’m going to, I have some really wonderful things brooding right now about Daniel, but he faced enormously dangerous situations, two tyrannical kings, confronted them powerfully without any saving of himself, and without any fear. It’s really quite phenomenal. Then of course we know the lions. He wasn’t, he didn’t appear to be, there’s no evidence that he was afraid. And one of the things he did was that he worshipped three times a day. (J) Umhmm, umhmm.

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